


promise me forever

by chewhy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Comedy, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewhy/pseuds/chewhy
Summary: When Atsumu is four years old, he goes to his mother and tells her, "Okay, I'm a big boy now. You can send Osamu back because I'm good at being alone."He doesn’t tell her that he’s actually still kind of afraid of the dark, and runs up the stairs screaming when the lights turn off in the kitchen. He doesn’t need to, because Osamu will do it for him, teasing and tattling on him whenever the chance arises.Atsumu dove into Osamu’s bed one time and he has to live with this for a lifetime? He’d much rather be alone.His mother laughs and pats him on the head, telling him, "Osamu is your brother. That means he's here to stay forever."A journey through the highs and lows of the Miya twins and their life together.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Osamu, Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	1. When We Were Forever

**Author's Note:**

> see end notes for warnings

When Atsumu is four years old, he goes to his mother and tells her, "Okay, I'm a big boy now. You can send Osamu back because I'm good at being alone."

He doesn’t tell her that he’s actually still kind of afraid of the dark, and runs up the stairs screaming when the lights turn off in the kitchen. He doesn’t need to, because Osamu will do it for him, teasing and tattling on him whenever the chance arises. 

Atsumu dove into Osamu’s bed  _ one time _ and he has to live with this for a lifetime? He’d much rather be alone. 

His mother laughs and pats him on the head, telling him, "Osamu is your brother. That means he's here to stay forever."

– 

When Atsumu is eight years old, he pushes Osamu off the swingset and screams at him, "Why can't you leave me alone? Stop following me around all the time!"

Atsumu has always been the louder of the two, screeching on the playground and attracting attention while Osamu tags behind, nibbling on some snacks and somehow managing to integrate himself into Atsumu’s hard earned friend group, every single time. 

Later, when they're sitting in time out next to each other in a corner of the classroom, Atsumu hands him a piece of candy in apology. 

He remembers his mother’s words and the way she knelt down in front of him, grabbing both of his hands to tell him, “Because you’re older, you have to take care of your brother.”

– 

When Atsumu is sixteen years old, he dares Osamu to leave him behind. "Fine. I'll keep playing volleyball, and I'll be way happier than you!"

"Fine! Go ahead, see if I care! I'll be the happiest chef in the world! We'll compare when we're old and wrinkly, just you wait."

And that's a promise.

It doesn’t stop Atsumu from crying into his pillow later that night in the dorms and dangling his hand over the edge of the bunk bed, watching for Osamu to catch it.

He receives a slap instead, and they both get an hour of detention for fighting after lights out. 

– 

When Atsumu is twenty-eight years old, he pretends not to cry as he watches his brother walk down the aisle. He watches as Osamu finds a new family – as Osamu is taken off the Miya family register and becomes a Kita, instead.

"I'm not leaving," Osamu says and to Atsumu it feels like a lie. He's going to live out in the country, on Kita's farm where the cell service fucking blows.

Now what's Atsumu supposed to do when it's four in the morning before a big match while his stomach is churning and he wants to bug his twin for cat memes?

– 

When Atsumu is thirty, he does his own bit of leaving. 

"Turkey isn't so far, right?" he asks, even as he pulls Osamu in for a tight hug, long since over his childish fear of showing real, human affection. He says those words to comfort himself more than Osamu, because somehow, between eight years old and thirty, Osamu’s managed to grow more than Atsumu could ever dream of. 

"You've got internet. It'll feel closer than the farm,” Osamu answers, rolling his eyes. "Now hurry up before you miss your flight, idiot." 

Atsumu sticks his tongue out as he goes through security, insisting even over the noise of the airport, " _ You're _ an idiot!" 

He  _ doesn't  _ cry on the plane. Not at all. 

– 

When Atsumu turns thirty-one, he celebrates his first birthday alone. 

Part of him, the small, tiny, eight-year-old part of him thinks that it will be fantastic, to have your own cake and blow out all your own candles and not fight over who got the better present only to have them stolen away later. 

Sitting here in this room full of people, among his teammates and friends, Atsumu finds he can’t finish swallowing his cake because of a mysterious lump in his throat. 

He excuses himself to the bathroom. 

“‘Samu, hey. What’s up with you.”

_ “It’s four in the morning, ‘Tsum.” _

“Perfect timing, huh?” He can practically feel Osamu rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. “Hey, so. Just wanted to say happy birthday.”

Osamu snorts, before answering,  _ “I’m not saying it back, loser.” _

Atsumu hears a small click as Osamu hangs up the line. 

Later, when he gets home he discovers a package waiting for him on his doorstep. There’s a note inside. 

_ Made your favorite. Delivery fee was a bitch. Happy birthday, ‘Tsumu. _

Tears roll down his face and land in puddles on his countertop as he stuffs mouthfuls of tuna onigiri into his mouth under the single flickering bulb of his empty kitchen. 

There’s nobody to run screaming to when the light eventually burns out, leaving him in the dark. 

– 

When Atsumu is thirty-two years old, he rushes home on the first, thousand dollar red-eye flight he can catch.

– 

When Atsumu is thirty-two, he throws up in the cramped airplane bathroom, heaving into the toilet until he feels like his guts are going to fall out of his throat as he prays to gods and deities he doesn't even believe.

– 

When Atsumu is thirty-two, he scrubs his hands up and down his thighs until they're red and raw, pinching at his legs to ground himself in reality as he runs into the street and jumps into the first taxi he sees.

– 

When Atsumu is thirty-two, he runs into the hospital and sees the wrong brother, pacing up and down the corridor with bloodshot eyes.

Kita sighs when he catches sight of Atsumu and pulls him in close, wrapping his arms around him. "I'm so sorry."

Atsumu’s ears ring as he takes in the words. 

– 

When Atsumu is thirty-two... he realizes that promises are so easily broken.

"You promised you would be happier than me," he whispers but there's no response except the dull beeping of hospital machinery.

If he could go back to when he was four, when he was eight, when he was sixteen... he would ask for new things, new accusations, new promises. 

“You're my brother,” he says, voice cracking. “You’re supposed to stay forever.”

– 

When Atsumu is thirty-three... Osamu remains thirty-two.

– 

Atsumu keeps his head held high. He keeps his promises. He keeps forever. 

Every year, he comes back to Osamu with his lopsided onigiri, stuffed until it’s bursting with tuna, salmon, jellybeans, anything he can find. (Some ingredients he picks just on the basis that they would have made Osamu angry for disrespecting food.) 

He tells Osamu how happy he is, how much fun he's having with volleyball.

– 

When Atsumu is forty years old, he can laugh up at the sky as he tells Osamu about the new team he's coaching now, how they yell at him when he tries to feed him his homemade onigiri because Atsumu never quite mastered the art – not when he thought his brother would always be there to do it for him.

– 

When Atsumu is sixty years old, he sighs as he kneels down, bones creaking and cracking as he sets out sake, pouring a cup for his twin into the grass and downing the other for himself.

"I can't say I'm particularly wrinkly, though I'm sure you would have been," he says, staring at his reflection in the polished stone. With his blonde hair reflected darker against gray, it almost feels as though Osamu is there, watching him on the other side.

"But I am old. And you know what? I win. I'm happier than you," Atsumu says, laughing at his own joke. "Not very hard to be happier than a dead person, huh?"

He quiets down as the joke lands flat with nobody to rebut or fight him for it. His reflection can't answer him.

"I think, though," he finally says after he's had enough of his own face staring mournfully back. "I would have been happiest with you. Forever."

Atsumu stands, nearly falling over when the blood rushes too quickly to his head. He catches himself on the gravestone and stands there for a moment, staring down. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.”

He makes his way home slowly, in silence. The wind whistles loudly through the empty space to his left. 

– 

Sometimes, when it is late at night and Atsumu can't sleep, he will look at his reflection in the mirror, part his hair the other direction, and say, "Hey 'Tsumu." 

Just to see how Osamu might have looked if he had a chance to grow to be this old.


	2. routine

When Kita is four years old, his grandmother tells him that someone is always watching. That he must do good, be diligent, work hard, and that, eventually, all his hard work will build up and receive its proper reward. Life is simple. Just follow the routine and everything will follow. 

When Kita is eight years old, he asks his grandmother why his mother and father don't live at home anymore. Why they haven't visited in ages. Why they've broken their routine. 

She bends down and gathers him in her arms, telling him that they are always watching. She points to the blue sky above, and Kita wonders how they manage to sit on the clouds without falling through. 

Kita realizes that he does not need them to be watching. He just needs them to keep their routine.

When they don’t come home for another week, and then another… he pokes a hole in his shoji door so he can peer out at the sky. Maybe their routine is just watching now. 

When Kita is thirteen years old, he practices volleyball. His grandmother doesn’t come to his games because he doesn’t play in them, but she’s proud of him anyway. His parents don’t come because they can’t. They at least watch him practice. 

Kita practices until his arms are red, and then more. It’s just routine. 

When Kita is eighteen years old, he wishes, for a moment, that he could have done better. Played longer. Been there to support his teammates for just one more game. 

Most of all he wishes he could have been braver, and broken routine for once in his life. Instead, he graduates and says goodbye to his friends, his teams… and the person he loves. 

When Kita is twenty, he realizes he doesn’t have to break routine to pursue what he loves. 

When Kita is twenty, Miya Osamu worms his way into his routine, his habits.

When Kita is twenty-one, he finds himself looking forward to visiting the city – those day trips where he'll deliver his rice to  _ Onigiri Miya _ and sit in the corner booth, watching as Osamu smiles to each customer, hands shaping his food with care, diligence. 

Routine.

When Kita is twenty-five, Osamu finally has enough of his silence and takes matters into his own hands. Routine changes, shifts. 

Osamu holds his hand. Presses soft kisses against Kita’s cheek. Cooks for him and feeds him. (Atsumu absolutely loses his mind when they tell him.)

Kita wonders if somewhere, somebody is watching. If his parents are watching. Somewhere.

When Kita is twenty-eight, his grandmother falls sick. She begins to forget her routine, the same ones she’s worked her whole life to brand into her muscles. She asks Kita where her daughter-in-law is, why she doesn't visit anymore. She asks how her little grandson, Shinsuke is doing. She thanks Kita, for being such a filial son. 

Of all the things that Kita has practiced, being his own father is not one of them. Je doesn't have enough experience, he doesn't know how.

He never even had a father of his own to watch growing up. 

In the few moments of clarity his grandmother has, she pats his hand and asks him when he will marry. When he will bring home a wife.

With each passing month, Kita wonders. Would it hurt more to have his heart broken by his grandmother, if she doesn’t accept Osamu? Or would it hurt more to break his own and never have the courage to break this one routine and introduce his grandmother to the person he loves? 

When Kita is twenty-nine, he brings home a husband, instead of a wife. 

His grandmother smiles and pats his cheeks, and then Osamu's. And then she cries, not knowing who they are or what they are doing in her home. She begins to forget even Kita’s face as he grows older, outgrowing the face of his father that she once knew. 

But there are moments of clarity in between. She remembers. “You played volleyball with little Shinsuke, didn’t you?” And that is enough. 

When Kita is thirty, he is no longer eight. hHe does not need to ask to know that his grandmother watches him, always. That she is now with her son and daughter-in-law. That she doesn’t fall through clouds in the sky. That she lived her life of routine and diligence, and this is how it ends. 

When Kita is thirty, he is still a child. He cries, and cries, but now he has Osamu to hold him as he does.

When Kita is thirty-one, his family grows. It is him, Osamu, and now their daughter, Shiori. 

His routine grows, stretches. He wakes every morning, and wonders who is watching; if they can see the rewards he's reaped. 

Every morning, he eats the food Osamu has cooked and goes out in the field to plant his crops and watches every day as his daughter grows. He always makes time to pass a volleyball back and forth with his daughter and husband – sometimes her uncle visits and brags that he’s in the pro-leagues. 

Every night, he goes to bed with the people he loves wrapped in either arm. 

When Kita is thirty-three, he realizes that it is all pointless. That his mother and father are not watching, that his grandmother was taken from him. 

And that now, his family has shrunk.

When Kita is thirty-three, his routine collapses in the empty white hallway of a hospital. He sees his brother-in-law run in and collapse next to the bed, but all he can think is that this is no kind of reward. 

When Kita is... he doesn't know. How old he is. What day it is. How many days he's spent just staring blankly at the wall. 

His body is a slave to routine. It is, perhaps, the only thing that keeps him and Shiori alive. His body moves, pushing dust and grime from one corner of the house to the other. The food they eat now is unseasoned and burnt. When his work in the field is done, he sits down and wonders what exactly there is to live for. 

That is simply how the day changes. 

When Kita is thirty-five, Shiori turns eight years old in silence. 

It is only when Shiori tugs on his jacket as he sits slumped over at the kitchen table that he looks around and realizes. 

"Is Papa ever coming home?"

When Kita is thirty-five, he buries his face in his daughter's hair to hide the tears as he begs for forgiveness for giving up. For letting it break. 

He realizes now that  _ she _ is everything to live for. 

Thankfully, routine is something that can be built once again. Day after day. Year after year.

When Kita is thirty-five, and Shiori is eight, he tells her that Papa is always watching. That somebody is always watching. He thinks of his grandmother and hopes that this will never be routine for Shiori. 

Perhaps the better word for a routine passed through generation is tradition. Some traditions are better broken. 

When Kita is forty, and Shiori makes him dinner for the first time, all on her own, he prays to those who are watching. 

He's never believed in deities like his grandmother used to tell him, but he looks up at the sky and wonders who watches over him and his daughter now. 

He wonders if somewhere, his family is watching together. He wonders if Osamu knows his parents better than he had the chance to, having spent more years with them than he ever did. 

He wonders if his grandmother remembers Osamu now, as the boy who would come to his house and clear out their refrigerator and pantry in one sitting, or as the boy her grandson loved.

He wonders, most of all, if one day he himself will be watching. Watching his daughter grow, watching his daughter marry. 

Kita vows that he will. And as much as it pains him, he vows that he will watch it alone – because his husband is always watching. Somewhere, where he can't be. He can never watch his daughter from somewhere above – he has a duty to watch her grow up, right by her side. 

He cries as he tastes his daughter’s onigiri and wonders who told her what her Papa’s favorite fillings were. 

When Kita is forty-two, he and Shiori pack food together, standing side by side in the kitchen that feels just a little bit too large for only the two of them to share. Shiori chops and seasons the meat and vegetables while Kita carefully presses the balls of rice together, laughing when Shiori scolds him for the awkward shape and for stealing bites in between. 

They walk to Osamu’s grave, kneeling down in the grass. There are flowers laid out in front of the tombstone, already several days old. 

It had become routine for Kita to plan his obon visits around the time he knew Atsumu would be long gone. It had become routine for Kita to avoid watching certain volleyball games, to avoid certain restaurants where familiar golden hair was frequently sighted.

It had become routine for Kita to avoid Atsumu, because the glimpse of what might have been was too much for him to bear.

“Uncle must have been here,” Shiori says in a quiet whisper, fingers brushing the flowers. The petals are dry and withered now, and fall away at her slight touch. 

It was hard for Kita those first few times when Atsumu would visit, and he’d have to explain to Shiori again that her dad wasn’t coming back – that it was just Uncle Atsumu. 

But they’re okay now. They’ve learned to get through it together. They have their routine, and they have each other.

**Author's Note:**

> tw: implied character death
> 
> adapted from my [original twitter thread](https://twitter.com/ch3w2/status/1353909208530493445?s=20) with a few additions. I've begun posting quite a few headcanons and threads similar to this on twitter (and tumblr) so you can follow me there for similar content! (not all sad!)
> 
> there will be a part two from kita's pov posted soon
> 
> find me on [[twitter (ch3w2)](https://twitter.com/ch3w2)] and [[tumblr (ch3w2)](http://ch3w2.tumblr.com/)]!  
>  **kudos and comments always appreciated**
> 
> my carrd is [ch3w2.carrd.co](https://ch3w2.carrd.co/) for more information about requests


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